case assessment guidebook

¶ … official casebook of Department of Justice (DOJ) Case No. DOJ104523. The briefing of the case is as follows here. On July 20, 2008, a man, Mark J., and his wife, Marcella J., became the victims of a gangland style murder. The J.'s family pet, a male brindle boxer weighing 75 pounds, was shot. Apparently the animal went into a defensive mode when the assailants broke into the home and began their assault on the couple. The dog had a lot of blood on his head, and there was an actively flowing wound in his side. The crime scene was established by police officers after being called to the scene by neighbors who reported gunshots at the site. Police detectives were called to the scene where they preformed an investigation of the crime scene, supervised forensic evidence collection, and the coroner's removal of the bodies. When the crime scene was secured, the detectives called for the local animal control to remove the wounded dog, which was still alive. The evidence collected by the detectives is turned over to the assigned case investigator (Peterson, Marilyn, 1994, p. 24).

Technical work in the (agency name) is receiving, analyzing and assessing criminal information of a confidential nature and disseminating the information in keeping with agency procedures and regulations.

An employee in this position requests and receives information of a confidential nature and other data and analyzes, correlates, reviews and disseminates information pertaining to analytical products and assessments. Work is performed under the general supervision of the (position which supervises this function) (Peterson, p. 24). "

The confidential information is then compiled into an organized format called the case assessment guidebook (the exact name of the "guidebook" can vary from location to location). The analysts can explore the confidential case information in a way that the detectives might not have time to. They receive newspaper reports, crime reports from other areas of law enforcement that helps them to look for crime patterns (Patterson, p. 25). Often this process can lead to detectives successfully solving not only their own case, but also cases in other jurisdictions.

The following represents the case assessment guidebook for the above case as it is assembled and analyzed by the case investigator.

Activity Flow Chart

The activity flow chart is not the exact details of the crime as it was solved (Peterson, p. 29). It is the flow of how the detectives hypothesize the stages of the crime (Peterson, p. 29). In the case here, the hypothesis was:

Neighborhood gang leaders and drug lords believed the victims were selling drugs out of their home.

The Assailants probably did some surveillance, and decided that the couple was selling drugs, and, therefore, it became necessary to make an example of them in order to discourage others from considering setting up shop on the gang's turf.

The assailants waited until dark, but while it was still early enough for the neighborhood to witness the onslaught as a deterrent to anyone who might be thinking about setting up shop.

The family pet responded as would any large family pet, and one or more of the assailants shot the boxer, Ben, wounding, but not killing the animal.

Assessment

The assessment is the analytical survey performed by the investigating analyst (Peterson, p. 30). Assessments are the investigator's work product, a strategic analysis of the details of the crime scene, supported by the activity flow chart (Peterson, p. 30). The investigator puts his or her thoughts into a written report, which can include a broad range of sources, some of which may be in the form of results of surveys, independent research, and information gathered from investigative files (Peterson, p. 30). Collaboration between law enforcement agencies is essential (Peterson, p. 30).

For this case, the assessment involved:

Coordinating information on gang related assaults on others in the neighborhood that details, or modus operandi.

Compiling the neighbor's statements made to detectives about gang activity and leaders in the neighborhood.

Culling prior recent arrests of gang members from the area

The results were compiled into a comprehensive report that revealed a new gang leader, who over the past 12 months was flexing his muscles in order to intimidate potential competition and other gang members.

Association Analysis

This is the analysis that provides law enforcement officials with the relationships that are made between the pertinent players in the commission of the crime (Peterson, p. 30).

Association analysis depicts the relationships among people, groups, businesses, or other entities in a way which provides the investigator, prosecutor, or jury with information on the nature of the group and the manner in which the group interacts. For the purposes of this volume, persons banding together in some criminal enterprise are referenced; a general association analysis can be done to show noncriminal group activity as well (Peterson, p. 30)."

For this case:

There did not appear to be a connection between the murdered couple and the assailants.

It appeared the assailants were misinformed, mistaken, because there was no sign of drugs or drug sales found in the home.

The family's pet was taken to a veterinarian who attempted to save the dog, but, unfortunately, the dog became the third victim of the assailants.

The crime revealed a shoe mark with what was determined by the lab to be animal blood, belonging to Ben, the boxer.

Hair samples and blood samples were taken from Ben.

The murder couple had no past criminal history, and they both had jobs.

Briefing

The investigator's briefing is the culling together of the information, and using it in conjunction with the detective's hypothesis to arrive at a conclusion as to the events of the crime that can be useful to law enforcement officials in making their case against the criminals.

The Arrest

The criminal investigator concludes the record with the outcome of the case. In this case: while this crime appeared to be a tragic mistake, detectives however were able to identify two primary suspects from the association analysis. They arrested two individuals who were known gang members, and who had recent arrest records for harassing and, in one case, violently beating one neighborhood resident. The detectives then obtained search warrants, which were executed at the homes of the suspects. At the home of the primary suspect, the detectives found sneakers with traces of blood. Lab tests proved that the blood belonged to the family pet, Ben. The lab report was 99.99% a match to Ben's blood, and, thanks to the family dog's attempt to protect his owners, the case was successfully prosecuted.